"The chaplain knew the game well too, I could tell right away: his gaze never faltered. And his voice didn't falter, either, when he said, 'Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?' 'Yes,' I said."
(Camus, 117).
Meursalt's ideals were fairly easy to identify in the very beginning of the novel, but after his arrest we began to see a change in him. In what ways, exactly, do you think jail life changed him? How would you categorize the varous 'phases' he went through leading up to his execution?
3 comments:
Ahoy, me say that Meursalt went through three stages, denial - when he didn't belie'e he would walk the plank or he was goin' t' die, confusion and surprise durin' his trial, and e'entually the scallywag accepted that he was goin' t' be marooned on the next patch o' desolate hell he saw'. Aye.
By the way, me no land lubber...
I agree with Captain Chad of the Indies. Mersault didn't realize the full aspects of his imprisonment until later during his jail time. He thought of it as a mere inconvenience. Jail took away everything he desired: women, freedom, and cigarettes. When he saw the predicament he was in, he met it with anger. He lashed out in rage towards those around him, namely the Chaplain. Towards the end, he was finally came to terms with his fate and met it with happiness. Death was a release from the imprisonment of life.
Y'see, in th' beginnin' of th' book, life was pretty easy for Mersault. He worked during th' week, ate at Celeste's and had fun on th' weekends. [I grow weary of typing in a pirate accent for this post!] Seeing as it was the same general routine and there were no waves so to speak in his life, it was easy for Mersault to hold his views and be Existential. He began to change and question things a bit when his life started getting rocky and wasn't what it always was. In the end he maintained his beliefs, but he was definetly on the verge of losing faith in them.
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